Gutenberg movable type

Timeline

1. c. 1450–1455Mainz · German landsGutenberg cast movable type of uniform height from a lead-tin-antimony alloy, paired with a hand-cranked screw press and oil-based ink suited to metal relief type, forming a reusable movable-type printing system in his Mainz workshop.
2. c. 1454–1456Mainz · German landsThe 42-line Latin Bible, typeset and printed with movable type, proved that metal type could reliably produce large volumes; its hand-colored red and blue initials and fine typography became the material and technical benchmark of early movable-type printing.
3. 1465–1490Italian Peninsula · ItalyPrinting craftsmen carried type-casting and typesetting skills into Italy, France, and Iberia; workshops were successively established in Venice, Rome, and elsewhere, Roman and italic typeface designs developed accordingly, and reprints of classical texts surged.
4. 1491–1500Western Europe · Western EuropeBy 1500 Europe had hundreds of movable-type printing shops, with publishing expanding from religious classics to humanist works, law, and vernacular books; movable type had become an indispensable technological artifact of the early modern European knowledge economy.